"Send me a selfie, right now," she commanded him one night. To her relief, she got a photo moments later. There he was, sitting on a bench in the sun on the other side of the world.

Lacy concludes that this world of crime is "Nigeria's central issue that it will have to face, own up to, and tackle if the country is going to play a greater role in the global economy. Ignoring it is like ignoring China's lack of political freedom; India's deep poverty and infrasturcutre problems; or the civil war going on in Brazil's favelas."

Jasean Francis, 17, was shot in the back, chest and left hand. Charles Riley, 16, was shot in the back and left leg. The third teen, who was not identified, managed to escape the gunfire. Both of the boys who were shot were taken to University of Chicago Hospital and later died from the injuries they suffered during the shooting.

419 or fraud is slightly more complex. It usually involves the face to face conversations that sell fake oil deals, undertake white collar crimes, classic art — that runs in 7 figures  theft or even straight digital bank robberies.

Marley’s team has not responded to Pitchfork’s requests for further comment. A representative for Zlatan said Zlatan was not yet ready to talk. And Orilade, the EFCC spokesperson, has not answered when pressed by Pitchfork on the nature of the government’s evidence against the two rappers. Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the EFCC, said in a public event last week that the agency was not targeting musicians, according to The Punch. Magu said that “the EFCC does not go after an innocent person.”

“I wanna chime in here, guys. Yolanda, his format that you had on Instagram, it’s completely fake. What they do is they run it for so long and if they can’t get a hit, like they want 50 clients at a time, they’re called Yahoo Boys and G Men,” Lisa shared. “You were his client and he is not done with you. He’s your atypical scammer, he’s grooming you, next he will seclude you. He will take you from your platform. He will move you to Vibe, Hangouts, WhatsApp.”

80% of the time, you can pick a Yahoo boy out of a crowd. It seems there’s a standard they all adhere to from some mystical general mentality they all have in what is, ‘good’.

Okechukwu Nnadi was never too eager to go for a lowly paper pushing job anyway. He tells me that he got expelled from another, private university once, after he had sought excitement and material gain by joining a cultist association: a mix of a local gang, a militia, and a fetish type religion of their own. Nigeria’s dysfunctional state structures simply don’t attract those who are, like him, cleverly ambitious. As we chat, it becomes increasingly clear that he is very proud of his scamming skills.

Internet fraud has become immensely popular in Ghana, Nigeria, and many other West African countries. It has even inspired movies, songs and catchphrases. There are many reasons for this. First, scores of young people are unemployed in the region. Also, the virtual world is still like the Wild Wild West with barely any effective legal controls and restrictions.

And, as Amy discovered, victims in the U.S. have few options. When she talked to an agent at her regional FBI office, she says, they took her report — and told her that a woman in the next town had lost $800,000.

You may well think you'd never fall for a romance scam, that they're cheesy, inauthentic and very obviously after your cash. But security experts have warned that there's been an increase in all sorts of online fraud during the coronavirus pandemic.